cleaning cars

I make my own track cleaning cars.  I will send you the drawing, photos, and instructions if you want.  However, I am in Florida and you will have to wait until i get home. Email me if you want and I will add you to my list and let you know when I will be home.

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Dennis

David:  Give Gary at Weaver a call.  if there's something wrong with your car, he'll certainly fix it.  Mine works just fine.

Paul Fischer

Hi David,

Did you try doing a search on this topic or a variation of it? It has been discussed numerous times over the years with various opinions. However, most agree that cleaning by hand is the most effective. Some use a scotch brite pad dry, some use a cleaning solution such as denatured or rubbing alcohol. For me, using track cleaning cars makes sense because my schedule does not allow me to run trains often.I have many hard to reach areas and the track cleaning cars work well enough. Dennis emailed me the plans for his car a few years back and it works very good and is very inexpensive . I also have a Northeast Trains cleaning car that I use wet with alcohol or dry with scotch brite pads. It is hard for  me to change the pads with my arthritis, but that is the only negative. It cleans good. I also have a postwar Lionel track cleaning car, and used a variation of Jim Barrett's conversion using scotch brite pads. It works well spinning or just being dragged along.  The last car I purchased was an R&L track cleaning car. I was intrigued by the design of using small foam paint rollers.The rollers are easily interchangeable, clean-up with dish soap and water, and are inexpensive at Lowes or Home Depot. I can run this car for a couple of loops, change out rollers and run it again. I keep several sets of rollers on hand. There are other cars that members have recommended like Centerline (the demo I saw work well), and Trackman 2000. I usually run at least two cars together at a time.  With over 1200 feet of track, I find track cleaning cars necessary and useful, although cleaning by hand would be my first recommendation.  As a final thought to my longest post ever, none of these cars get hung-up or pick the points of my switches (Ross, Fastrack, Supersnap, Lionel 022). Have not tried them on 027 yet. Good luck, and welcome to the forum

Bob

I have a Centerline Car. It is impossible to find replacement rollers but besides that, it works well in my experiences. I wouldn't use it "wet" if running alone. Only use it wet with another track cleaning car running "dry" behind it. I use mine dry and in only a few loops, it picks up an incredible amount of crud. 

Ditto that. 

So, I gave up on their fuzzy rollers and went with the basic design they use on their HO and N scale version; Solid, heavy core with replaceable paper towels tied/banded around the core.

A piece of 3/4" PVC pipe is an excellent core, easy to work, cheap.  (You could try a short piece of iron pipe...too much work for me!)  Fill it with some BB's or a bunch of flat washers, cap the ends.  Then cut some absorbent paper towels into strips the width of the core.  Wrap a strip or two around the core and band it in place with two rubber bands placed so they will ride between the rails.  You might make a few extra cores and have them wrapped, ready to go.

I do what Centerline recommends and soak the first roller with Goo-Gone.  A few trips around the layout behind a stalwart engine.  Replace the wet roller with a dry one, or re-wrap your core with dry towels.  A few more trips.  Maybe yet another dry roller.  etc.  When you're satisfied with a pinky-wipe test that your track is clean, run trains.

Remove the soiled towels from the cores, re-wrap to be ready for the next time.

Not hard.  No more fruitless, gas-guzzling searches for the correct fuzzy rollers.  Works as well as their HO and N track cleaners. 

Badabing, badaboom.

KD

I am a proponent of dry operating track cleaning cars.  You only need the tops of the rails clean so why add a liquid that certainly will flow down the sides of the rails and onto your ties etc. adding goop to your layout that no car is going to clean?

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Dennis